Page 17 of Xeda

"Do you hear me? I don't want you near me. When I get out, I will come for your hide just for having the nerve to speak to me."

She didn't respond.

He growled. "Don't ignore me!"

When she didn't react, he stretched his leg out and dragged a piece of meat toward him just before her hand reached to pick it up. He clenched it in his hand and held it up for her to see.

The woman straightened. She eyed the meat and then glanced at him. She no longer had that look of eager excitement. Now she just looked indifferent. Or maybe even annoyed.

Xeda bared his teeth. "You don't give me that look. I don't owe you anything. I didn't ask for your help. I—don't turn away!"

"What do you want me to say?" she said in a low voice. "What? Sorry I helped you? That I was trying to be nice?" She looked back at him.

He watched her, his chest rising and falling. "Yes, an apology. Kneeling right there." He pointed down at his feet.

Her mouth opened in disbelief. "As if, asshole." She turned away again, and he hissed in frustration.

"I am not. I just expect a proper apology and that is how it is done."

She whirled around. "Maybe for your people. But not mine. And you have some nerve thinking you are owed an apology. You're one to be full of yourself in such a position. You're not the only one trying to survive here. Get over yourself. You have no power here, got that? None. And I wasn't helping you to gain something over you. I was just doing it because I felt sorry!"

"That's why I'm mad. I don't need you to be sorry!"

She threw up her hands. "Fine. I'm sorry that I felt sorry. There. I am not kneeling. That's the best you're getting."

Before he could respond, she came at him, stopping just far enough away. "And if anything, you owe me an apology. I don't need your shitty, empty threats. Or your dumb insults. You don't think I haven't heard them all? Have some originality, for fuck's sake. Split my skull and drink from it? What are you, a troll?"

He didn't know what that was, but he figured it wasn't something he wanted to be referred to as. "Oh, don't worry. I can think of many creative ways to kill you."

She laughed. Shelaughed.

"Yeah, get in line. Don't forget where you are. Someone here has probably already thought of it. You've got some competition."

He clenched his hands so tightly that the meat in his one hand splattered on the ground.

"I'm sorry, don't like that? Well, too bad," she snapped. "You might be one of the scariest, but you are in no way the toughest person on K2, as hard as that might be to believe. I tried to warn you. Hendrik will keep to his word, and then he will just throw you in the ring, trained or not. And your opponents know what they are doing. Teeth and claws mean shit."

"You told me to fight in whatever way that means," he snarled. "To survive."

"Yes, but be smart about it!"

He was speechless. He'd never had another talk to him that way. Not an otherkin. The audacity.

"I don't need you to tell me what's smart," he growled. "I know how to survive better than any of your kind could ever hope to."

"Probably. In an offworld scenario, sure. But I know what this place is like, and you don't. I have knowledge you don't. This isn't surviving the wilds of some hellish world. This is different. This is politics and persuasion and manipulation. And cutthroat deals. If you had been smart instead of insulting me and trying to drive me away, you might have been able to manipulate me into giving away information about this place. Hell, you might not have had to try hard if you had been nice."

Xeda stiffened. Was she serious?

Heat burned beneath his skin, now more enraged at himself than her. It was true he was never one for political games even on his own homeworld. He let other more experienced kin deal in that regard. He had made a good scout and spy at best, and a skilled warrior. He liked to settle matters with his teeth and tail, it was true. Act first, talk later. At least from the less shattered memories of his mind, this was what he could recall. Only savagery. Maybe he had once been better than this, but now it was hard to remember.

And maybe it had cost him. Because as much as he hated it, she had a point. He was a fool.

Pathetic failure.

He had let his anger and need for petty revenge weaken him, make him think less clearly.

He hissed low. "You're right. What a wasted opportunity. And interesting that you would be so open about your weakness."

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